by Sara Dillon
Back across another kind of rain on Sunday afternoon, after having got through my cousin Bridie’s dinners, past Athlone, into the midlands, and back up the quays. In my small apartment off Morehampton Road, I realized that I smelled of turf smoke and was as tired as if I’d stayed up all weekend. In the Law Faculty, my image became inextricable from the idea of a West of Ireland cottage and a fixation on country culture. This meant that I’d be no threat; merely an unwelcome American eccentricity of the Dean’s. I woke early every morning. I walked through and around Dublin constantly; the center was small and easy to cover in a short time.
In Dublin, there were building sites everywhere in those days. Bricks were falling, green glass walls going up.
Each Friday afternoon on the way to Park Baun, I’d stop outside Mullingar and buy my pack of ten cigarettes. I never smoked in the car, only when I pulled into the house at Park Baun, opened the old front door and looked around. I would light up and look out at the long crooked path into the nineteenth century.
Lady Brett; always
It was one of those dreams of which Una would have roundly disapproved. After some university event, perhaps the screening of a human rights film, Sasha and I found ourselves on a quiet path, walking and talking. In this dream, Sasha turned to me and said, hesitatingly, I know I should not ask you this, Professor, but could I kiss you once? Just once? Please, may I?
It seems I did not answer; as, even in a dream, what answer would be the right one? No—a certain end to the story. Yes—too suggestive and certainly too far off from my real life behavior.
Sasha, so the dream went, took my face in his hands and kissed me—how to describe it?—thoroughly. There was a vivid fragrance off his face and hair.
I woke up feeling not guilt, but only a mild surprise and pleasure at seeing my story writing skills had survived intact.
Thinking it over, as I could not help doing, this dream seemed to contain all the sad, sweet moments, existing in their strange hierarchy of importance understood only by me. As for Sasha, he was a bit too much the ski bum type for me, wandering the lodges and slopes of Eastern Europe.
Yet it was his capacity for sad passion, as revealed in the dream, his hesitancy, his apologetic approach, asking just one kiss and no more, that gave him this part to play.
I wrote to Calvin, though he only seldom replied.
Am re-reading Hemingway, Gods know why, I just have to take him up again year after year. I know he is a sexist, though a quirky one. Just took out The Sun Also Rises, a good book for springtime, makes you feel you are about to go to Spain and that it won’t even be too crowded, that you will bump into people you know. The way Jake runs into Brett everywhere; Brett and the matador, I get that. It used to be that way, if you put it into the it’s all about me category.
I could survive on just this slender thread of communication.
I must have been endowed with some great gift of endurance; strength others had for the cold, I had for longing and deprivation. Madina and Emmet bickering in the back seat, I could continue to do everything, and so persistently, get them into the car, out of the car, through the town, perhaps a stop at Willey’s, though you had to watch Emmet every second, up the hill, out of the car, hands to be washed, vegetables to be peeled, beds to be made up, warmed, comforted.
NPR was so familiar and so boring, year after year, the same news. If the world was coming to an end, NPR would try to make it sound like a routine event, a few interviews on the scene with unknowns.
How many thousands of dollars you have, Mommy? Emmet’s language had improved immensely.
Oh, I don’t know, enough I guess.
How many? Twenny dollars?
More than that.
‘finity dollars?
Less than that.
How old are you? One hundred?
Not as much as that.
How old you really? Emmet put his hands together in supplication and fell on the floor, arching his back and repeating pleeeease.
Siteen? Seventy? Twelve?
I don’t like to talk about my age, I said. Go build a castle.
Now and again I thought of Sasha and the dream. Pondering it was a minor pleasure, essentially spectral, like that glass of wine I’d have after the kids had gone to bed. Likable Sasha with his funny stories at least brought me clippings about Russian poets and ballet dancers. Skaters as well, as he knew figure skating was a weakness of mine. I had wanted to be a skater, never was anyone made more perfectly for skating.
That had been the frightening part about teaching at the law school in Boston; no spark of any kind, no looks exchanged and no one with whom I would have exchanged them, no symbolic pictures on the wall. My empty office, that looked like I had not moved in even after years, and never would move in, the messy desk attesting to nerves and overpreparation. No one to watch for at the door, no surprises, no rainy evenings or revelations, just endurance, a grim, head-down, self-punishing endurance. And thus into the dream came Sasha, or should I say skied in, smiling, admiring, pockets overflowing with bits of poems and proverbs, looking me in the face, guiltily but with joy, May I kiss you, Professor, just once, but thoroughly?
Drifting apart; 1995
It was that phrase I couldn’t stand. Winnie in the pub asked me how was it going for us, me and you, and I told her, ah well, sure, we drifted apart.
I nearly lunged at him.
Not drifted apart, I shouted at Seanie. That had nothing to do with it.
And so, in what was really no time at all, Seanie was banished from Park Baun, never to return. Such was our fundamental dislike of one another that, once we had, well, parted, we would have hated like poison ever to meet again face to face.
I had tried to convince him of the utter and absolute beauty of the high ditches on either side of the dirt road leading to Park Baun. In winter, the grass turned the palest yellow, almost white, and the sound of the wind was several notches louder than usual. There was a rare frost, a cold rain, clouds outlined in black, racing across the sky.
Sure, pet, I know, he’d said, though quite unconvinced in manner. He didn’t want to work on the old kip, as he saw it, not a bit of comfort in it, sure, knock the bastard anyway.
One evening as we got ready to head out on the town of Turlough, with Seanie all set to go and the deep dark pea soup night outside his mother’s door, she’d banged her fist on the table and said to me, I’m turning the farm over to his brother ‘cause sure, isn’t Seanie’s place with you now in Park Baun?
Hold on now, this was a new twist on things. Never since I’d met him had I been more eager to turn him back to his Mam, and never had I less intention of taking him on or bringing him into Park Baun with me. I’d rather spend a thousand nights scared out of my mind than to gain protection in that way.
Well, that is certainly not decided, not the way I see it, I said, frightened of her in one sense, but certain I would not let this be put over on me this way. And as for the farm, don’t let me change anyone’s plans. His mother huffed and turned away, because it certainly did change her plans. I’d provided the perfect cover for ditching Seanie and giving the thirty or forty odd acres to his brother as she’d always wanted to.
I left the house and went out into the brumy dark, never a deep dry cold, just Celtic mugginess even in the dead of winter, the sense of being low down, crouching near the sea.
What the hell did you tell her, Seanie? I fumed at him.
What was she on about at all? he asked back, evasively.
And thus by morning, the entire town and environs knew that any thought they’d ever had that Catherine and Seanie would be married and living in Park Baun was up in smoke.
But yes, the only downside to this was that each night I spent at Park Baun I was doomed to lie awake until morning light, wide awake in the intolerable dampness, waiting for cars to pass, wondering if one might stop, what I would do if I heard footsteps, a parting of grass in the front garden, no one to hear me or save me.
>
It was the nineteenth century down my road, and especially at night, an Ireland less hospitable by the year to spirits and fairies was preserved, though uneasily, down the road to Park Baun.
Truth to tell, I’d lost a bit of my old local luster by virtue of going about with Seanie, and as a consequence no one asked me what had happened to him. They took his presence on the scene as a brief bit of madness on my part, and accepted his departure—though in point of fact he’d gone nowhere, geographically speaking—with a slightly embarrassed nod of satisfaction.
The fiasco had left behind a series of lovely photographs, though, taken by Una at various local castles and even on the beach at Cape Cod. Seanie photographed well, especially in bad weather, had that Peter O’Toole look of world-weariness that did especially nicely in black and white. Seanie was forever about to quit the smoking and never quite got there; that indecision and in-between quality showed in the photos, weary and in between drinks, gazing out to sea, about to be banished, but good fun on a road trip in the meantime.
Motifs
If I knew anything, it was that we were compelled to create something of manageable size; and hence, the motifs. Not to be able to settle on one with any consistency was somewhat anomalous, but not contrary to the general theory. At its worst, the need for this self-limitation became agoraphobia; mirror, mirror on the wall in the company of just one; even worse, though, was the opposite prospect of some indistinct and anonymous wandering.
Tuscan cooking, Civil War obsessions; organic farming, arranged marriage, self sacrifice, Park Baun, Caspian Lake, the building of igloos and yurts, the particular blue of window shutters in Provence, sealing wax, Corgie breeding; all these resulted from said requirement of situating oneself in a motif.
And then a feature as yet undiscovered and unexplained by scientists, the kernel of unyielding loyalty to one’s own way of liking and disliking, marking territory, the desperate embrace of me, me, me, incredible, strong beyond belief, like the well-known matter of snowflakes being each one different from all others, falling and falling according to the rule established by that absurd and apparently useless fact, but there it was.
And so I found myself, windshield wipers taking on rain from Lanesboro onward, pulling onto the grass at Park Baun, opening the door, hearing the echo as the empty rooms received a visitor, the cold dust settled in every corner and the wood lice pleasantly surprised at company. Here I am, no idea why or recollection of how, but I am back, collecting turf into a big bag out in the wind and rain, running back in, cigarette box awaiting me on the mantelpiece.
It was a project that could never be completed, a house that could never be made warm, the bathroom cold as a barn, grounds that could never be tamed, grass and hedgerows and half size trees in a knot of mess all around the place; never to be brought to heel without a massive investment and marshalling of machines that would entirely remove the point of it.
I had my collections; the old dishes, some left behind by the family that had lived there for decades, dying one by one, tea mugs with stripes; other pieces brought from thrift shops on Cape Cod, across the sea in a plane, gravy boats and dinner plates. I had my collection of religious pictures that had hung on the walls of cottages in an earlier age, the age just ending as I had first arrived, way back when.
I had my old sweaters, changing into either of the same one or two whenever I arrived out. They could get dirty with turf or stone dust, it didn’t matter. To go to church one needed only to cover it up with a coat, a pair of spiffy old boots, and it was just fine, intriguing.
My share of old friends and even a couple of former lovers showed up from time to time in the early evenings, greeting this strange lady with her falling down estate in the trees of Park Baun.
As time wasters go, it wasn’t bad.
I could fritter away a fierce amount of time. Perhaps if I’d put it to better use, with less day dreaming, there would have been more to show for myself. I was only a stone’s throw there from the places where Gramma’s people had come from to leave and go away, rarely to be heard from again, arriving in America, the fuss, asking for jobs, the sounds of the horses and carts, the train whistles. And then here I was back, standing in the crumbling doorway at Park Baun, looking out at the deserted fields, no more EU heddage payments for sheep, hardly a horse, the equestrian only a hobby now, and cattle only stragglers in the global food chain. Thinking of Queen Maeve and the ancient lowing of cattle, must have another look at that, confirm a theory of dying culture, look up a set of verses that showed conclusively the formerly sacred nature of the land.
Groups of people seemed to have these tendencies as well, more or less like the kernel of the unalterable individual, and among the Irish, there was an urge to head out of the house, to drink and to speak, a lot, an awful lot.
Some days out there I’d have a burst of optimism; I could make the house tidy and bright, banish the frightful nights of pea soup darkness. I stood on painted chairs, painting the walls brighter and brighter whites, playing the radio, a traditional music program from Roscommon or Ballina. The unimaginably tall pine tree moved always back and forth, back and forth in the wind that lived in the land and would never leave it. I avoided certain of the rooms as too dark and damp. I kept the fire going. I painted all the old chairs, the old table, painted right over the evidence of woodworm past and present.
From there to here, funny things are everywhere
I could not have explained, let alone to John Merrill, how I went from being that star young lady, so clever, small, pretty, tad wild, tad timid, game for everything, to the craven creature I’d become, desperate for an e-mail telling me I was remembered.
It would be unwelcome news, in any case. Oh, that one, the folks in Turlough insisted, she’s her money made. And from Saint Theo’s, She’s gone into law, and other dreaded phrases.
As I dragged the kids in and out of cars in Boston and Cambridge, up and down escalators, dropped them at school, hauled them out of bed, arriving at my law school office to hear a talk on intellectual property licenses, the blood draining from my face, eyes turned towards the door, panicking, needing to escape from the room, the power points, the quips, leaping from my seat, looking quick for the recycle bin to drop my plate in with a crash and head for the noisy set of doors, out into the air, away from them, away from them all. My heartbeat whooshed in my ears, an epic struggle twixt life and death, Joan of Arc, I’m going, going, tis a far better thing I do, get out with your life, abandon ship, get out, out if you can.
So you didn’t like it, then? It wasn’t a story anyone especially wanted to hear.
You are not banished, Catherine, Merrill had said to me during my time in Dublin. That was the rare jewel in my pocket, the simple and generous promise of some future restoration. And so I often wrote for Merrill, self-consciously, assuming that he knew it all, and didn’t especially wonder or balk at how I could so screw things up. Of course, he didn’t enter into my motifs; in other words, could not be expected to share my taste in motifs. He had his own, though they tended more towards hobbies than dramatic, life-changing events. I liked that notion, though I’d never achieved it: the living room filled with evidence of motifs explored, but always the living room dominating the motif.
I by contrast had been taken over by my motifs, had gambled more, despite my innate personal caution and dislike of chaos. I had gambled at a level of daring that surely qualified me for the blackjack tables at Monte Carlo.
For Merrill, it was say Mexican art, maybe veering off in the direction of textiles; one hoped there would be no obsession with serapes. I might have done the same with Rodin water colors; too 1970s, perhaps, and not surprising enough. I had that predictable vein, too, though, and didn’t go in for anything of questionable aesthetics.
The fireplace, shelves of chosen items, a glass of brown spirits with unmelted ice cube; winter vacation, oversized books. It might have been like that, but, for me, it wasn’t.
And despite
all that moving about, I’d come down to earth in the strangest of places. Isn’t that your field of law? they would ask, that incomprehensible notion, What exactly is your field?
Lady Brett; 2007
COULD YOU COME HOTEL MONTANA MADRID
AM RATHER IN TROUBLE
BRETT
It was in just that way I wanted to write to Calvin. But for Brett Jake did arrive in a taxi; how quickly he had moved when he received the telegram, stopping to consider the implications of literal translations of Spanish to English, and having found her at the end of the long dark corridor; good enough, Jake was, to make sure she was dusted off and sitting up on a hotel stool drinking a good and cold martini in very short order.
She’d had that affair with the matador, the perfect matador, a mere nineteen years old, the madness of it, and yet how expected. Oh, darling, she’d say, I can’t help myself, I can’t help anything.
Come please, am rather in trouble, and Jake appeared, Spanish fluent enough to banter and dicker with the proprietor of the Hotel Montana.
I would troop over to the Greensboro Public, up the little hill to sign in to use the computer. I could have written to Calvin, Come please, am rather in trouble, or not that exactly, but something to that effect, am rather in trouble as nothing happens to me any more, do you remember me?
Hemingway and his two bottles of wine with lunch, or three, more if there was a small crowd. How could anyone drink like that and still speak, let alone have a sense of irony and be able to translate that well? Always able to do things, really do things, order food correctly, tie flies, chill the wine in the river, speak any and every language idiomatically, an aficionado always. He seemed not to read much poetry, rather the newspapers, two or three at a time, even when the news was essentially the same in each.
